14 DAY TRIAL // The United States Department of Justice has announced that Florida resident Charmaine Anne King has been sentenced to 57 months in prison and 5 years of supervised release for her role in an international lottery scam that targeted elderly Americans.
A federal jury convicted King on February 5 of three counts of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy and two counts of wire fraud.
Althea Angela Peart, another member of the conspiracy, pleaded guilty to her role and was sentenced to 33 months in prison.
Peart revealed that an individual apparently located in Canada sent out letters to elderly people in the US informing them that they had won a million dollars in a lottery. The letters purported to come from a legitimate sweepstakes company located in the US.
To make everything more legitimate-looking, the victims were sent counterfeit cashier’s checks for thousands of dollars. Victims were instructed to contact other co-conspirators, who instructed them to pay certain fees that were allegedly needed to collect the winnings.
Each victim was told to send several thousands of dollars to King and others involved in the scheme. King kept a certain percentage of the money received from victims and sent the rest to a co-conspirator. The US Postal Inspection Service discovered that King was involved in a lottery scheme and warned her. She even signed a Cease and Desist Order, but she continued taking part in the fraud scheme.
“In this particular scheme, the fraudsters convinced the victims to deposit counterfeit checks into their bank accounts in order to pay fees to collect their purported lottery winnings,” said Wifredo Ferrer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.
“After the victims sent the money to King, the counterfeit cashier’s checks bounced and they lost their money. Such fraud will not be tolerated. Together with federal and local law enforcement, we are working to put an end to this type of scheme.”
In a different case, a Jamaican citizen, Oneike Mickhale Barnett, was sentenced in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to 60 months in prison and 5 years of supervised release for his role in a similar international lottery scheme.
Barnett was arrested in August 2013 in Orlando, Fla. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in February 2014.
The man was part of a scheme in which elderly Americans were tricked into paying bogus fees that were allegedly needed to cash in money that was won in a lottery. Victims were sent written and electronic communications that purported to come from a legitimate sweepstakes company, and various federal agencies, including the Fed and the IRS.